Personally I am not a Catholic, but when I find something that makes sense, and as the manager of this website I consider interesting and helpful, I find it worth sharing.
Alessandro D'Avenia is an Italian professor who have contributed convincing articles about peace and war in Ukraine, Gaza, and other places.
The full Italian article can be found here, Ultimo banco 244. Disarmata e disarmante, but for those who don't speak Italian or don't have have a translation plug-in to their browser (which by the way I find a very helpful) I have included some highlights of the article below from my browser translation, which is not perfect but good enough to make the point in question. So here goes...
Peace it is the word with which Leo XIV inaugurated his pontificate, it is not a utopia or a political project, but the essence of faith. It is the peace that Christ first promises to his disciples «I leave you peace: it is my peace that I give you. I don't give it to you like the world does. Do not disturb your heart and do not be frightened» (Jn 14:27); and that afterwards he gives them, once risen, with a breath, «while the doors of the place where the disciples were for fear of the Jews were closed, Jesus came, stood among them and said: “Peace to you! ”. That said, he showed them his hands and his side. And the disciples rejoiced at seeing the Lord. Jesus said to them again: “Peace be with you! As the Father sent me, I also send you ”. Having said that, he breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit ”» (Jn 20: 19-22).
This peace, disarmed and disarming, humble and persevering, as the pope called it, is not an ideology or idealism, but the description of the life of Christ given to those who want it, here and now: just as God creates the human by blowing on him “shaped man with soil dust and blew a breath of life into his nostrils and man became a living being ” (G in the same way Christ re-creates it with a breath, the Spirit who gives and spreads this peace, which is the hallmark of the gospel. But what is this peace? Why is it different from that of the world?
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The so-called “Roman pax” was l ’interruption of the state of war permanent, a balance imposed by the fittest, as long as it was ... When Christ says “peace to you ”, in Latin “pax vobis”, does not impose a relationship of strength of the divine on the human, an agreement between parties at war, but creates the new condition in which human and divine are one. In fact, in the Greek original the phrase sounds “Εἰρήνη υμῖν ” (eirene hymin), where the word “peace ” does not indicate “pact ” (another word was used) but a state of being, does not use a legal or diplomatic term, but the condition of those who are in harmonious relationship with themselves, with things, with others, because it has within itself the life of God, who is Love.
Eirene it was the closest Greek word to Hebrew “Shalom”, greeting used by the Semitic peoples who, however, in the speech of the risen one, is not a mere wish but a fact: happiness, joy, fullness, integrity, salvation, here and now, and always. Christ offers his own, blowing the Spirit, a new condition, in which everyone can, if he wishes, flourish, because the obstacle to happiness – evil with all its manifestations (death, pain, fear, violence ... ) – will never prevail (“ Evil will not prevail ” said Leo XIV, and not to console the faithful but to remind them how things are on the level of faith). The peace that Christ “blows ” in his is therefore very different from the uncertain one in the world, it is not mental or material well-being, or a temporary balance imposed by the fittest, but a new way of life: for love and to love.
Whether or not this peace exists in the world depends precisely on Christians, because this is the gift and task they have received, as happens to two who love each other: they set up home, they expand the life they have in them. This peace, narrated in the form of a breath and therefore not of imposition, it must however be accepted before and every day, only in this way does it also subjectively produce what is objectively (a gift is not such if I do not waste it, I do not receive grace if I do not want it). This peace is therefore a state upstream of any project or commitment, which are then the logical consequence. Peace is disarmed and disarming, humble and persevering because this is how Christ is, if there is Christ in us, there is this way of being: «Whoever believes in me will do the works that I do and will make bigger ones» (Jn 14:12), words that he took seriously would fill the churches.
The pope is therefore reminding Christians not a project, not a program, not a utopia, not a label, not an ideology, to commit to, but who they themselves are by grace received and who can be more and more, by free choice. This way of being does not differentiate them from others, they have the same defects and strengths, fortunes and misfortunes, limits and talents, falls and successes, but all with a joy and an absence of fear which is not, in fact, of this world, that is, explainable with human forces alone.
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So the way I understand it, in my little simple mind, if I am going to sum up the essence of this beautiful message is something like this;
The peace treaties of the World is power based, "I am the strongest, but I lay down my weapons of war because you subject yourself to my terms" - in other words it is a compromise.
But the peace of God is the in-breathing of the Holy Spirit which gives us the power to turn the other cheek, forgive and love even our enemies.
